Careless
by macisgate
Summary: His order to close the iris would have been so much easier if she hadn't been staring right at him when he said it. Tag to "The Other Side". SJ.


I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who read and reviewed my last story, "The Letter"! This new story is a tag for another episode that left me unsettled – "The Other Side". That stare at the end between Sam and Jack. This fic explores what happens after that scene.

Takes place in Season 4, immediately continuing the episode, mentions the Stargate movie, and maybe explains a little why Sam was so sure of Jack's feelings for her in "Divide and Conquer" which was only a couple episodes later. Plus, I've always wanted to write them having a big fight to release those bottled up feelings.

Macisgate

* * *

His order to close the iris would have been so much easier if she hadn't been staring right at him when he said it. She's his subordinate, but she's more than that. The heaviness of her gaze, her judgment, weighs down on his chest, and suddenly he finds it hard to breath. He goes from feeling like a seasoned colonel to a shamed child.

She turns and walks away, and he wants to run after her, to tell her he's sorry. To beg for forgiveness. But pride holds him in his place, anger quickly replacing everything else. A defensive adolescent response at her obvious disapproval. Daniel and Teal'c look between him and a retreating Sam, trying to figure out what to do.

Awkwardness fills the gateroom as Jack can't seem to move. Finally, Daniel walks up the ramp toward him.

"Jack? You okay?"

Jack isn't quite sure what to say.

Daniel looks back at the gateroom full of onlookers. "Jack, come on… let's go to my office," he says quietly.

Jack shakes his head. His body is frozen, but somehow, he gets his feet to move, brushing past Daniel. An airman takes his gear, and he mutters a "yes sir" to General Hammond's order for a debrief in an hour. His whole body has turned to stone, a tin man with no heart.

* * *

The tension only gets worse as they clean up, get checked out in the infirmary, and debrief with General Hammond.

Daniel and Teal'c share uneasy glances across the table as the problem obviously doesn't involve them. Sam refuses to look at Jack, anger wafting off of her in waves. Jack has turned almost robotic – unemotional and flat as he gives Hammond the details of what happened on the planet, of the kind of man that Alar turned out to be.

When Hammond asks for an approximate number of the dead, and Jack's answer is in the thousands, Sam's flinch doesn't go unnoticed.

As soon as the General dismisses him, Sam and Jack are on their feet, Sam leaving first. Jack grabs his notebook and pen, briefly stopped by Hammond warning him to "fix it."

* * *

Jack marches into her lab moments later, ignoring Daniel's hasty advice to cool off first.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he demands, closing the door behind him.

Sam turns with rage-filled eyes that make him take a step back. He doesn't often see this side of her – the side that is too far gone to care about the fact that he outranks her.

"Wrong with me?! Thousands of people are dead. How can that mean so little to you?"

"You're taking this too personally!"

"You're not taking this personally enough!"

They are both yelling now, neither one seeming to care if they are overheard.

"You _knew_ he was going to follow us through."

"I told him not too. He knew about the iris. He knew _exactly_ what would happen."

Sam shakes her head in disbelief. "I don't get you! I don't get how you can talk one day about how _no one gets left behind_, but then you do something like this – letting someone die just because you disagree with them."

"Why are you defending him?! He was a horrible person."

"But you're not!"

She stops suddenly, looking like she's said too much.

They stare at each other, finally silent. Jack eventually mutters, "Carter… I'm sorry if I let you down."

Now it is Sam's turn to stay frozen as Jack walks away.

* * *

She finds him in the men's locker room. With a little help from Daniel and Teal'c, she knows they won't be disturbed. It's been a few hours since their fight, and it's getting late. She doesn't want him to go to sleep tonight thinking that she hates him.

He'll be able to tell that she's been crying, but she doesn't really care.

She watches him for a moment, sitting in the empty room, hair freshly washed after a grueling sparring match with Teal'c. The anger is gone, and all that she's left with is the tenderness that started all of this in the first place.

"You didn't let me down, sir," she enters the room and sits beside him on the bench. "You could never…"

"Carter… I really am sorry." His eyes are anguished, and she hates that she's done this to him. She's _his_ 2IC, not the other way around. But this fight was never between _Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter_ – just _Jack and Sam_.

"It's me that needs to apologize, sir. I was way out of line."

They both say at the same time, "If you want to write me up-"

Both break off smiling.

"How about we just don't?" Jack suggests.

"Okay," Sam agrees. "I still want to explain myself though."

"You don't have to," he assures her.

"I overreacted today," she admits. "I wasn't myself before we even made contact with them, and I let my emotions get in the way. I, um…"

She suddenly feels like she's saying too much. But she's started this.

"Two days ago… Daniel told me about what happened on the first mission to Abydos. He told me… that you went there knowing it would be a one-way trip."

Jack looks away from her, silent. Finally he tries to joke, "Well Carter, you of all people should know that wormholes only allow travel in one direction."

"Colonel…"

"Yeah…" he exhales heavily, confirming what she was told. "It was a one-way trip." He can see that this upsets her. "They didn't understand at the time that there were so many gates and other planets. They thought by blowing up the Abydos side, they would protect Earth from any future enemies coming through the gate. Daniel and the others were supposed to be sent back, but I was supposed to stay and set off a bomb." As if only his life being on the line made it better.

"Why would you… How could you ever consider accepting a mission like that?" They are looking into each other's eyes directly now. Professionalism, the pretense, is gone, leaving one soul mate looking into the eyes of the other. One soul mate trying to understand how the unspoken love of her life could be so careless with his own.

"It was right after Charlie died," he explained. "I… wasn't handling it very well."

Now it's her turn to exhale. "I'm sorry," she says.

"But something changed, Carter. It started out when that mission ended with me still alive. But even then… I was just barely making it through each day."

"What changed?"

"You," he admits.

"What?"

"You walked into that briefing room, so full of life and eagerness and energy and… I felt like I could breath again for the first time in so many years. Like there might be hope for me after all." He looks away, embarrassed.

As much as she wants to hear more, he's treading on dangerous ground. "Sir, I…"

"Carter, I want you to understand that you are changing me for the better. That I'm trying to hold myself to higher standards… because of you. Today made me feel like I failed in that goal. Like I failed you," he admits.

Sam shakes her head. "You didn't fail, sir. I still…" She struggles, trying to choose her words carefully. "I don't ever want to see you reaching that level of despair again. I don't want you to think that life can be treated so carelessly. That _you _are expendable, because you're not. You're… the best CO I've ever had."

He smiles gently, her words warming him. He can feel his heart beating again.

"I really would understand if you want to file a complaint about my actions today," he assures her.

"I don't intend to do that, sir. I just… want you to understand… that your life is meaningful to me. And to Daniel and Teal'c and General Hammond and to so many others." She gives his hand a squeeze and stands up. "We better get going. It's late. I'll… try and be more professional tomorrow."

"Me too," he promises. "I'll be along in a minute."

She nods and leaves him alone to his thoughts.

In the silence of the locker room, with the smell of soap still filling the air, he vows to her, to himself, to God, to whoever will listen, that he will never treat his life so casually ever again. If not for his sake, then for hers.

* * *

The End


End file.
